Harry Potter and the Tired Midnight
by The Winter Wren
Summary: Voldemort conquered the Ministry, and forced a nearly magicless Dumbledore into hiding. The once powerful wizard raised Harry in isolation, while magical Britain went silent and dark. But rumor has it that the Dark Lord will soon expand his territory. And there are whispers that the world is changing, that a new power, greater even than Voldemort, has woken from its slumber...
Harry trekked the Washington coastline, heading north. He carried everything needed on his back. Except his wand; that was in his right hand, clenched so tightly it left marks.

To Harry's left sat the sea, looking glassy and blue in the morning light. To his right rose forested hills, or mountains, or whatever you wanted to call them. Harry wasn't good with geographic terms. Really, he wasn't good with anything that Dumbledore had deemed impractical, and that was a lot. Mathematics? Nope. Biology? Enough to deal with situations in the field, and nothing more. Chemistry? Aside from poisons and antidotes, it all went out the window. According to his tutor, things like Defense, Transfiguration and Potions were more important. Though for the life of him, Harry couldn't figure out how mixing Draughts would help him do...whatever he'd be doing in the future. Dumbledore never really said, just hinted vaguely at roles and duties.

Which was why Harry found himself alone on a seaside highway, walking in six hour stretches, trying to find the path back to civilization. He had begun in Seattle, the city that had been his home for as long as he could remember. He'd marched down the coastline, over 200 miles, camping in his tent along the way, or sleeping under the stars. The trip had begun in late October. It was now nearly Christmas, and Harry was almost done. By his estimation, Seattle would be in his sights around late evening, and he'd be at his home by mid-afternoon the following day. Then maybe he'd get some damn answers.

Dumbledore had claimed it was some sort of training exercise. To test his endurance. To see if he had what it took. The old man had said that, upon returning, Harry would be given an important piece of information, which would give him a greater understanding of his "purpose." Harry hadn't known quite know what to make of that, so he'd stayed silent. It wasn't as if badgering Dumbledore for more ever got him anywhere. When the man was ready, things would be revealed. Though he sure knew how to draw things out.

The days were getting shorter, the nights colder. Most mornings, Harry awoke to find frost in his hair and his eyes frozen shut. Nothing a little Warming Charm wouldn't take care of, but that expended energy, one of the many things Harry couldn't afford to lose. So he pushed on, like a good soldier. He remembered his lessons from Dumbledore. And above all, he didn't complain, because to complain was to be weak, and to be weak was to be defeated.

By mid-afternoon, Harry was sweating, despite the sea breeze. The sun sat high overhead as he stopped to eat his lunch. Some protein bars. An apple. A couple of sticks of dried meat. Normally he liked to sit for at least half an hour, regaining his strength and relaxing. But with the knowledge that home was within a stone's throw, he decided to push on. He could rest when he got back. Hopefully on the couch, with Dumbledore sitting across from him, explaining everything he could possibly want to know.

Harry couldn't quite explain why he thought it, but the world seemed disturbingly...unstable. Maybe it came from tiny unconscious signals, things that Harry had learned to read though he couldn't explain how or even do it at will. Like changes in the wind, in the tides. Whispers in the forests. Strange shapes in the migrating birds overhead. Regardless of how he knew it, it was apparent that he was on the cusp of something. Something big. A change of monumental proportions…

Maybe it was the dreams. They were always of the same thing: an expansive countryside, pooling with lakes and rivers and hills, surrounded by forest. And at the center, a high, twisting castle, with turrets reaching for the sky like claws. Sometimes, Harry thought he could see colored blurs in the distance, off behind the castle. Like birds, but faster, and strangely colored. Red and yellow. Green and blue. He never got a good look, because they were small, and the dreams never lasted very long. But something about it all—about the lake, about the castle, and about the flying 'birds'—it spoke to him...like it was from some half-forgotten life...or some book he'd read, but only barely remembered...

He'd told Dumbledore about the dreams, but the man's face had remained unreadable, and his knowledge was not forthcoming. As with everything he asked, Harry would find out 'when he was ready.' Not before. Not after. The only thing that Harry got from the man was an assurance that the dreams _did_ mean something. When Dumbledore had left for a week, Harry had stolen a book from his study on dream divination, not that it did any good. It had been written by some woman named Sybill Trelawney, and Harry thought it was immediately clear that she literally knew _nothing_ about the subject. The information she gave was contradictory at points, the margins were littered with dream 'prophecies' that were demonstrably false, and this Dr. Trelawney had a penchant for gruesome examples that served only to make Harry nauseous. The autobiographical blurb at the back indicated that Sybill Trelawney was the great-great-granddaughter of the renowned Seer, Cassandra Trelawney. It said nothing of Sybill's achievements, however, and Harry couldn't understand why Dumbledore had purchased such a ridiculous book. Of course, he couldn't ask the man; no way was he willing to admit that he'd been in the private study, where Dumbledore had expressly forbidden him to go.

Some days, Harry had to wonder if Dumbledore was playing some sort of big practical joke on him. Or the man just enjoyed messing with the lives of orphans, and Harry was his latest project. Because Harry's life just felt too _weird_. Raised by an eccentric old man since the age of one when (he was told) his parents had died in a car crash. Confined to the house during his early years, working diligently on his magical theory until the age of ten, when Dumbledore had brought him his very own magic wand. Where it had come from, Harry had no idea, but after that, he only spent half of his time on dusty old theory books; the other half was dedicated to practical applications, in which he memorized all sorts of charms and incantations and wand movements, so that they become a part of him, and the wand became an extension of his arm.

That had started a while back. Harry was now sixteen, and the rigors of his curriculum had only increased. Though he was far less supervised; these days, Dumbledore was gone as often as he was there, going off to meetings or bars or God knew what else. The only thing that Harry knew was this: before each journey, Dumbledore's blue eyes became harder than usual, became _steely_ , and his voice took on a wintry tone…

Then the man would look off into the distance on his way out the door, and he would say, "Remain safe." But he would sound like he wasn't talking to Harry at all, as he looked out across their small suburban yard, face lined and wrinkled. He would sound like he was talking to the _world_...

* * *

The night, Harry slept along the rugged coastline, in the tent Dumbledore had provided him for the journey. Before going inside, he paced around the perimeter, casting shield charms. Dumbledore had drilled into him the value of constant vigilance, of staying hidden. The man had also drilled into him no less than 35 incantations that blocked off a designated area from detection, each with subtly different effects. Harry chose to use 16 of these, because shield charms took far less energy than basically any other set of spells he was familiar with. And he knew that the area just outside Seattle was occasionally dangerous for magical travelers. Something about the city attracted magicfolk, and they weren't all upstanding witches and wizards, either. You could find some scavengers who were always eager for wands, and weren't afraid to let heads roll in the process. Or so Dumbledore told him. Harry had never encountered people like that, himself.

Harry got out his sleeping bag for the night, and stretched out in the small space. (Dumbledore had expressly forbidden Harry to use an Undetectable Extension Charm on the tent and his backpack, which meant that he didn't have one of those tent-turned-house contraptions that he'd seen in a couple of his spellbooks.) Not for the first time, as he closed his eyes, Harry wondered what was going on in the rest of the wizarding world. Aside from Dumbledore, he'd not actually met another person like himself. Read books by them, yes. Had Dumbledore lecture at him on their history, yes. But interact with a real, live, breathing witch or wizard? It had never happened, despite Harry's many requests. Really, he hadn't had much interaction with people at all. It wasn't as if he'd gone to public school like the normal kids his age...

Unfortunately, Dumbledore had restricted his lessons to distant history. Harry knew that there had once been several magical schools. One in America, somewhere along the east coast. Another in France. But he had no idea if they still existed, or if there were any magical schools at all, anymore. Maybe the wizarding world had declined over the last several hundred years, and the only magicfolk left lived childhood's like Harry's, being privately tutored in isolated homes, eventually released into a cruel world, where they were forced to become scavengers for wands and unwary travelers. Somehow he doubted it. While Dumbledore kept no modern magical history books in his studies, the autobiographical blurbs and the occasional references from the texts that he did possess hinted at the existence of _some_ form of classical training. Perhaps there was some sort of hidden magical society, which Harry would be inducted into when he became old enough, but never before. Where there would be this crazy hazing ritual that required he be eaten by a demon and then reborn.

Harry snorted. If only…

Days later, he would look back on these musings with one part wistfulness and one part disappointment.

* * *

It was as Harry was dreaming of the castle once more that it happened. He was watching the colored birds in the distance, swooping in and out of sight. The dark forest waved at him grimly, at odds with the mid-morning sunlight. And he thought that, just barely, he could hear a roaring crowd…

 _Crack_.

The nighttime silence was split by this sound, and Harry sat up so fast he hit his head on the tent ceiling. Milliseconds later his wand was gripped tightly in his hand. It pointed all around the tent while Harry crouched silently, listening for further disturbance, for the voices of thieves…

He knew that nobody should be able to see him. Dumbledore had verified the strength of his shields several times over the course of Harry's training, and had pronounced them adequate years back. But that didn't stop his heart from pounding, as he strained to hear all around him.

"Harry."

The tent disappeared, sleeping bag and all, as Harry leapt to his feet. He spun, a curse leaping to his lips, " _Inflamm_ —" and then he cut off rapidly, as he found himself staring into the serious blue eyes of Albus Dumbledore. The man stood on the beach, the waves at his back. He looked ridiculously out of place in his flowing black robes and sizable white beard. Harry noticed that the half-moon glasses—which Dumbledore often wore when teaching Harry—were absent.

"Sir! I—I— _what are you doing here_?" Harry struggled to calm his racing heart, and took some deep breaths.

Harry's mentor looked down at him in the darkness. "I am sorry to interrupt your travels like this, Harry. I had hoped that you would be back in time, that things would wait for your training to finish, but alas, the heavens keep on turning…"

"What do you mean, Professor?" Dumbledore had told Harry from a young age that this was an acceptable way to address him, despite his claims that he did not really deserve the title.

"The specifics will be explained in time, Harry. Rest assured that I have your best interests at heart." _Of course_.

"Sir, couldn't you maybe—"

Dumbledore raised a hand, stopping Harry mid-sentence. "Harry, I am afraid that time is of the essence. In minutes, I will be required to leave, and will not return for several weeks. By that time, I hope that you will be started on what can surely be called your next great adventure." The man smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes; he looked far too worried to convey any sense of warmth. "There is much you do not know, and I had hoped to explain it to you when you came back to our home. That is not possible now."

Questions were crowding through Harry's mind. Questions about the man's sense of urgency, about what it meant, but one pushed all the others aside: "Sir, how did you even find me?"

Dumbledore looked at him solemnly. "I simply Apparated every few hundred feet from the house; fortunately for me, you were only several miles outside of the city."

"Apparated?"

"A form of magical travel which I had planned to teach you in the near future. Though it is too late, now."

Magical travel? Which sounded like teleportation? And Harry had spent the last thirty days trekking across the West coast for _what_ reason?

Harry opened his mouth to ask more, but once again, he was stalled by Dumbledore's raised hand. "I am sorry, Harry, but you are going to have to listen to me now, and listen carefully." He cleared his throat, and stared deep into Harry's eyes. "In Massachusetts there is a school, called the Salem Institute for Witches."

"For _Wi_ —"

"Listen, Harry, please! We do not have much time!" Dumbledore looked more agitated than Harry had ever seen him. "You will go to this institute. You will ask at the gates for Headmistress Minerva McGonagall, and you will speak to no one else. You will keep your hood up, so that your face is not seen by any except for the Headmistress. Do you understand me?"

Harry really, really didn't get what was going on, but he supposed that the directions were simple enough. He nodded.

"Good. Minerva will question you, and you will tell her this: 'The boy has returned, and the time has come.' Memorize them. It is essential that you remember these words _exactly_."

"The boy has returned, and...the time has come?"

"Correct." Dumbledore made Harry repeat them twice more, until he was satisfied. "You shall also tell her that you were sent by Albus Dumbledore. She will not believe you. And thus you will show her this."

Dumbledore pushed into Harry's hand a large, ornate ring. Set into the metal was a stone, upon which an image appeared to be engraved. In the darkness, Harry could not discern what it depicted. He looked back up at Dumbledore. "Anything else?" He tried to keep the irritation out of his voice, and didn't quite succeed. It wasn't like this whole 'do what I say and you'll understand later' was new, but it was the middle of the night, and Harry was more rattled than he wanted to admit by the waves of worry that were coming off his mentor.

"There is one more thing. Once Minerva has given you what is...required...you will ask her to introduce you to a student."

"Who?"

"A sixth year girl named Hermione Granger. What you obtain from Minerva will explain what must be done after." Dumbledore proffered his arm. "Now, are you prepared?"

"I—I—no!" Harry most certainly was not prepared, Dumbledore hadn't told him anything except for a few strange requests, and he had no idea what he was supposed to being doing afterwards or when he would see Dumbledore again or who the hell this Hermione Granger was—

"I am going to need you to trust me, Harry," Dumbledore said. "I know that is perhaps difficult to hear, considering that I have kept you in the dark for many years. However, much will be revealed very, very soon…"

Harry's mind warred with itself for moments. But of course there was only one possible victor...Harry closed his eyes, and nodded. He would go along, as always, he would do his duty…

"Please, Harry. Grip my arm."

"Why?"

"We are about take a journey using Apparition. I will get you as far as the outskirts of the Salem Institute. After that...you will be on your own. It would be unwise for me to show my face to anyone, and furthermore, I do not have the time to aid you."

Harry took one last look out over the Washington coastline. He heard the waves, saw them breaking against the sand. The light of the moon was not powerful tonight, but it was enough to see by, and it was certainly enough to catch the look in Dumbledore's eyes, to recognize that the man was deadly serious, that something was not right in the world. Whatever it was that Harry had been feeling earlier, that uncertainty, that unease—well, he felt like he was standing on a precipice, about to jump into the empty air, with nothing to support him…

He wrenched his eyes back to Dumbledore. "I am ready, sir." Then he placed his arm upon the old wizard's, squeezed, and was sucked into the darkness.


End file.
